It was expected that he would distort President Obama into a caricature of Jimmy Carter. But it was astonishing to watch Romney spin a daydream of himself as some latter-day George Marshall, bringing peace, prosperity, and hope to a chaotic world—this from a man who couldn’t drop in on the London Olympics without alienating our closest ally and turning himself into a transcontinental laughingstock.

To the extent that Romney recited valid criticisms of Obama’s policies, he offered no alternatives. To the extent he spelled out specific steps he would take to deal with one problem or another, he merely recited actions that Obama has already taken.

This was not a speech he had to make — a speech distracting from the ground Romney had recently made up by refocusing his attention on the plight of America’s middle class. And if he had to make a foreign-policy speech, it did not have to cater to the neoconservatives and pork hawks already on his team. Nothing in this speech appeals to a war-weary and economically troubled people. It’s politically damaging. But he gave this speech anyway, and the only reasonable explanation is either that Mitt really believes — zealously — what he says, or else he’s entirely compliant to the ideological demands of right-wing Wilsonians. I suspect the latter is the case, and that portends a Romney presidency that would repeat all the errors of his Republican predecessor.